SIXTY YEARS AGO TODAY

It was sixty years ago today, on Wednesday, September 28, 1966, that Celtic played their first ever European Cup tie and set out on a road that led all the way to the Final in Lisbon, the following May.

Swiss champions, FC Zurich, were the visitors to Celtic Park for the first round, first leg tie, and a crowd of 50,000 packed into Paradise for the match played under the floodlights. It was a tough physical test for Jock Stein's side as Zurich were intent on trying to knock Celtic out of the attacking rhythm that had seen them start the 1966/67 season so well.

After a goal-less first-half, Celtic stepped up the pressure and got the goals that their dominance deserved. The honour of Celtic’s first ever European Cup goal fell to Tommy Gemmell, who picked up a pass from John Clark, strode forward and from over 30 yards out hit a powerful shot which crashed in off the underside the crossbar, leaving Zurich goalkeeper, Otmar Iten, with no chance.

The goal galvanised Celtic, who pushed forward in search of a second, roared on by the supporters. Within five minutes, they doubled their lead. Joe McBride, who had missed a couple of chances earlier in the game, fired home a shot from the edge of the box following an interchange of passes with Bertie Auld that saw the midfielder set up his striking team-mate with an impetuous back-heel which fooled the Zurich defenders.

The result could have been even better for Celtic when McBride appeared to score in the dying seconds of the match. The striker headed home a cross from close-range, but it was ruled out by the Danish referee who explained that he’d already blown his whistle for full-time, which could only have happened when the ball was in mid-flight towards the Zurich goal. It was a bizarre decision to end the game and Celtic thus had to be content with a 2-0 lead to take to Switzerland for the second leg of the tie, on October 5.

Celtic competed for five trophies in the 1966–67 season and the club won all of them: the Scottish League, the Scottish Cup, the Scottish League Cup, the Glasgow Cup, and the European Cup, and completed the only ever European Quintuple. However, their European Cup victory from this season qualified them for the World Championship the following season, which they went on to lose in a playoff to Racing. Over the course of this season, Celtic scored a world record 196 goals in the major competitions they took part in. The team from this season is commonly known as the Lisbon Lions, because the European Cup Final was held in Lisbon.

1966–67 season
Manager	Jock Stein
Scottish Division One	1st
Scottish Cup	Winners
Scottish League Cup	Winners
Glasgow Cup	Winners
European Cup	Winners
Top goalscorer	League: Stevie Chalmers  All: Joe McBride
Average home league attendance	31,082

CELTIC: Simpson, Gemmell, O’Neill, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Johnstone, McBride, Chalmers, Auld, Hughes.

A TIPPLE BEFORE THE CUP

In the European Cup (yes, the famed historic competition!!) in season 1978/9, a first round tie, Juventus was beaten by Glasgow Rangers and Real Madrid by Grasshoppers Zurich.....two shock results. The beaten clubs could easily have been Finalists (but they weren't!!). Liverpool was the reigning European Cup holders and hadn't been knocked out of European tournaments for four years; having won the UEFA Cup in 1976 and the European Cup in 1977 (somehow that works out as four years!). The Merseysiders were drawn against Nottingham Forest who had beaten Liverpool to the English Football League title and in the League Cup the previous season. But of course it was a typical Brian Clough master class that ruined the Pool's record!

On September 13th, the first leg of the tournament, at The City Ground, Forest won 2-0 and it was a 22 year old Garry Birtles, thrown into the "deep end" by Clough for only his third appearance for Forest. "Birtles did well," said Clough, "Two years ago he was laying tiles on roofs and if he doesn't score again on Saturday, he'll be up there again!!" Birtles didn't score but was retained by his "generous" manager!! With a large prize at stake, Forest were nervous going up to Anfield two weeks later. Always ready to show his lads something special, Clough said to one of his younger lads, "Right get the players a drink!" remembered Tony Woodcock, who said, "We each had a bottle of beer and later, the boss encouraged us to have a glass of wine, or two, with our pre-match meal, at the locally booked hotel." With a couple of hours of sleep on the coach to Anfield, Forest was relaxed and held out for a 0-0 draw in a match Liverpool never threatened to score! 

"They threw everything at us, except the docks," smiled Clough, "but we didn't panic and Forest went on to WIN the European Cup. Clough also pulled the same stunt that season, before their League Cup Final against Southampton, producing a crate of beer, ordering his lads to "tuck in". Result? Forest won 3-2. En Route, Forest beat AEK Athens aggregate (1-2,1-5) = 7-2, Grasshopper (4-1,1-1)= 5-2 , Koln (3-3,1-0) = 4-3. In the FINAL (30th May) at The Olympiastadion, Munich.... Malmo 0-1 Forest. Trevor Francis scored the goal after 45 minutes. 57,000 saw it! NOTE...not a Forest player holding the Cup of course!!

Event	1978–79 European Cup
Malmö FF Nottingham Forest 0 1
Date	30 May 1979
Venue	Olympiastadion, Munich
Referee	Erich Linemayr (Austria)
Attendance	68,500

FIRST IN EUROPE

 26th September 1956

The first European Cup  match  (note, this was before the various present European Cup/League competitions were put into place) was played on English soil. Manchester United entertained the Belgians of Anderlecht at Maine Road. In front of 40,000 fans, United took the lead after only 9 minutes with a wonder goal from Tommy Taylor and went on to win.....by 10-0 (12-0 on aggregate). Dominating Europe was going to be easy....wasn't it!

Date	Match	Result	Score	Competition
12 Sep 1956	Anderlecht v Manchester United	W	0-2	European Cup
26 Sep 1956	Anderlecht v Manchester United	W	0-10	European Cup
13 Nov 1968	Manchester United v Anderlecht	W	3-0	European Cup
27 Nov 1968	Anderlecht v Manchester United	L	3-1	European Cup
13 Sep 2000	Manchester United v Anderlecht	W	5-1	UEFA Champions League
24 Oct 2000	Anderlecht v Manchester United	L	2-1	UEFA Champions League
13 Apr 2017	Anderlecht v Manchester United	D	1-1	UEFA Europa League
20 Apr 2017	Manchester United v Anderlecht	W	2-1	UEFA Europa League

A RAY AND TOM

25th September 1962 Surprise League champions Ipswich Town showed they had no fear of the European Cup when beating Floriana of Malta 10-0 at Portman Road to complete an aggregate 14-1 First Round victory. Ray Crawford scored five of the goals at Portman Road – Ipswich were knocked out by AC Milan in the next round.

                 

25th September 1963 Most will remember Tom Finney, as a loyal one-club player for Preston NE, but on September 25th 1963 he made his only competitive appearance for a club other than Preston - in the European Cup. 

Three years after playing his last Preston game George Armstrong, the manager of Northern Ireland champions Distillery, coaxed the 41-year-old Finney out of retirement to play for Distillery in their European Cup-tie against the Portuguese giants Benfica. On this day in 1963 a 19,326 Belfast crowd witnessed a memorable 3-3 draw between the sides but without Finney in the return leg, Benfica ran out 5-0 winners.

Finney in a Preston shirt v Chelsea in 1956 at Stamford Bridge. Imagine this happening today!!

and his statue outside Deepdale at Preston NE.

WRIGHT SIGNING; WRONG ATTENDANCE

24th September 1991 Arsenal paid Crystal Palace £2.5m for forward Ian Wright, with many doubting the wisdom of paying a then, club record fee for a player not far off his 28th birthday. But Wrighty scored a hat-trick on his Arsenal League debut and went on to score 185 goals in 288 first team appearances, a Gunners record until Thierry Henry came along.

and on the 24th September 1991
Just 2,081 turned up for the Second Round, Wimbledon v Peterborough, League Cup tie at Selhurst Park, the lowest ever home attendance for a top-division club in the competition. Posh won 2-1.

Tue	Sep	24		Wimbledon		1	-	2		Peterborough United
Tue	Oct	8		Peterborough United		2	-	2		Wimbledon
					Peterborough won 4-3 on aggregate

In the Third Round:

Tue

Oct

29

Peterborough United

1

-

0

Newcastle United

and in the Fourth Round:   Tue Dec 3 Peterborough United 1 - 0 Liverpool

D

Fifth Round
Wed	Jan	8		Crystal Palace		1	-	1		Nottingham Forest
Wed	Feb	5			Nottingham Forest	4	-	2			Crystal Palace
Wed	Jan	8		Leeds United		1	-	3		Manchester United
Wed	Jan	8		Peterborough United		0	-	0		Middlesbrough
Wed	Feb	12			Middlesbrough	1	-	0			Peterborough United
Wed	Jan	8		Tottenham Hotspur		2	-	1		Norwich City

Semi-Finals (home and away legs)
Sun	Feb	9		Nottingham Forest		1	-	1		Tottenham Hotspur
Sun	Mar	1		Tottenham Hotspur		1	-	2		Nottingham Forest
					Nottingham Forest won 3-2 on aggregate
Wed	Mar	4		Middlesbrough		0	-	0		Manchester United
Wed	Mar	11		Manchester United		2	-	1		Middlesbrough
					Manchester United won 2-1 on aggregate
Final (at Wembley Stadium, London)
Sun	Apr	12		Manchester United		1	-	0		Nottingham Forest

RIOTS, CONFLICT, HOOLIGANISM, DAILY MIRROR!

 The first instance of violence associated with modern team sports is unknown, but football related violence can be traced back to 14th Century England. In 1314, Edward II banned football, which at that time, WAS a violent, unruly activity, involving rival villages kicking a pig's bladder across the local heathland or from one part of the village to another. The King believed the disorder surrounding matches might lead to social unrest or even treason. 

Conflict at an 1846 match in Derby, England, required a reading of the RIOT ACT and two groups of dragoons (soldiers) to respond effectively to the disorderly crowd. This was identified as "pitch invasions", a common occurrence during the 1880s in English football. The Derby team has its nickname, The Rams, as a tribute to its links with the First Regiment of Derby Militia, which took a ram as its mascot. Additionally, the club also adopted the song "The Derby Ram" as its regimental song. Rammie is the first FULL TIME mascot in the Football League. 1,500 saw this drubbing.               Derby Football Club officially formed in 1884, out of the Derbyshire County Cricket Club, where the players wanted to keep fit, playing the winter sport and so the club was almost named Derbyshire County FC. The club's first official competitive match came in November 1884, in the FA Cup 1st Rd, where they lost 0-7, at home to Walsall Town. 

Arguably the most important match in the club's history (so far) came a year later, on November 14th 1885, in a Second Round FA Cup tie, when 6,000 saw a 2–0 victory over Aston Villa, already an emerging force in English football. This victory established Derby County on the English football map, helping the club to attract better opposition for friendlies. Unfortunately, they lost their next Round match to Small Heath Alliance (eventually Birmingham City FC) 4-2. During this 1885-6 FA Cup campaign, the Old Carthusians, the old boys of Charterhouse School, lasted two rounds longer, eventually losing to West Bromwich Albion 1-0 in Rd 5. West Brom went on to lose the final in a replay to Blackburn Rovers, as the growth of professionalism took over Cups and Leagues.

In 1888, an invitation came to join the inaugural Football League. The opening day of the first ever league season was 8 September 1888, when Derby came from 3–0 down, away to Bolton Wanderers, to win 6–3. The club ultimately finished the season 10th out of 12 teams. From 1895 they played at the Baseball Ground, where unsurprisingly, Baseball had previously been played and the club stayed there for 102 years. 

The first recorded instances of football hooliganism in the modern game allegedly occurred during the 1880s in England, a period when gangs of supporters would intimidate neighbourhoods, in addition to attacking referees, opposing supporters and players. In 1885, after Preston North End beat Aston Villa, 5–0 in a friendly match, both teams were pelted with stones, attacked with sticks, punched, kicked and spat at. One Preston player was beaten so severely that he lost consciousness and press reports at the time described the fans as "howling roughs". The following year, Preston fans fought Queen's Park (Scotland) fans in a railway station—the first alleged instance of football hooliganism outside of a match. In 1905, a number of Preston fans were tried for hooliganism, including a "drunk and disorderly" 70-year-old woman, following the club's match against Blackburn Rovers.

Although instances of football crowd violence and disorder have been a feature of association football throughout its history, (e.g. at Millwall's ground, The Den, was reportedly closed in 1920, 1934 and 1950 after crowd disturbances), the phenomenon only started to gain the media's attention in the late 1950s due to the re-emergence of violence in Latin America. In the 1955–56 English football season, Liverpool and Everton fans were involved in a number of incidents and, by the 1960s, an average of 25 hooligan incidents were being reported each year in England. The label "football hooliganism" first began to appear in the English media in the mid-1960s, leading to increased media interest in, and reporting of, acts of disorder. It has been argued that this, in turn, created a "moral panic" out of proportion with the scale of the actual problem.

Fans have been permitted to bring in newspapers but the larger broadsheet newspapers work best for a Millwall brick, and the police looked with suspicion at somne football fans (particularly at Millwall) who carried such newspapers. Because of their more innocent appearance, tabloid newspapers became the preferred choice for Millwall bricks. "Newspapers were folded again and again and squashed together to form a cosh, so-called The Millwall Brick!! Another trick was to make a knuckleduster out of pennies held in place by a wrapped around paper. You could hardly be pulled up for having a bit of loose change in your pocket and a Daily Mirror under your arm." 

ANOTHER "FIRST" FOR OUR BRAVE NATIONAL TEAM!!!

On this day in 1949, the England team lost a home International match, beaten by the Republic of Ireland team (below) at Everton's Goodison Park, in front of 51,000. This was the first defeat for the England senior side by a visiting team from outside the UK. England was captained by the legend, Billy Wright of Wolverhamton Wanderers but he and his chums could not prevent their national side from failing to beat the Irish in a 0-2 "reverse". Goals from Con Martin and Peter Farrell sealed the English "fate".

The game was used by both teams as part of their preparations for forthcoming World Cup Qualifiers. Despite the absence of both Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen, England fielded a strong team, including Billy Wright, Neil Franklin, Wilf Mannion and Tom Finney.( players you should be familiar with!) 

Ireland's team included just seven First Division players, but these included Johnny Carey who had been voted Footballer of the Year in 1949. Another two Irish players, Tom Aherne and Tommy Moroney, like Finney, played in the English Second Division. The remaining two Irish players, goalkeeper Tommy Godwin and Tommy O'Connor both played for Shamrock Rovers in the League of Ireland.

The early pattern of the game saw England launch wave after wave of attacks. However Tommy Godwin was in inspired form and Con Martin, Tom Aherne and Johnny Carey proved to difficult for England to get past. Carey was also effective in keeping Tom Finney quiet, while wing-halves Billy Walsh and Tommy Moroney gradually took the sting out of the English front line. Ireland took the lead in the 33rd minute when Peter Desmond, after collecting a pass from Tommy O'Connor, burst into the England penalty area and was brought down. Con Martin then converted the subsequent penalty kick. During the second half the wave of England attacks continued. Peter Harris hit the bar and Jesse Pye also went close. However Peter Farrell, playing at his club Everton's home ground, made victory certain in the 85th minute. O'Connor slipped the ball to Farrell and as the English goalkeeper Bert Williamsd advanced, Farrell lofted the ball into the net.

England's attacking line-up and defensive resilience stood out, while Ireland impressed with their counter-attacking tactics and fighting spirit. 

England	0–2	Ireland
	Report	Martin 33' (pen.) Farrell 85'

at Goodison Park, Liverpool

Attendance: 51,047

Referee: Jack Mowat (Scotland)

Games won by England 8, lost 2, drawn 9